Influencer marketing is all the rage right now. Because consumers today, approximately 63% of users, trust messages or information from influencers more than traditional advertising and celebrity promotions, more and more companies have incorporated influencer marketing into their overall marketing strategy. Whole influencer marketing is a great way for marketing, ambassador programs are also a good way to market for the long run.
Establishing an ambassador program is an investment that requires careful planning and implementation. However, in the long run, these efforts can be very rewarding.
In this blog, we’ll introduce what ambassador programs are and the basics of an effective ambassador program with influencers.
Brand ambassador programs, which are closely related to influencer marketing, involve brands having a long-term relationship with influencers to raise awareness of the brand in the community. Given the relationship between the influencer and the brand, the brand ambassador program creates authenticity and helps the audience empathise with the content.
Long-term collaborations with multiple influencers are more economical to build a brand over time. This allows influencers to build strong personal relationships with the brand. Build loyalty and trust between brands and influencers when working in longer collaboration. This means that the influencer actually uses a product or service, which means you get more than you pay.
Collaborating over a long period of time makes it easier to provide influencers with creative space when you get to know each other better and what's best for your target customers. You need to provide space for publication based on influencer's real-life or specific events, which is very natural for recipients.
How can brands start an ambassador program to reap the full benefits of it? Here are 4 steps you can follow!
As with any influencer marketing campaign, the first step to launching a successful brand ambassador program is to define the goal of the ambassador program. Specifically, ambassador programs can be used to increase brand awareness, promote sales, and promote specific product lines!
In addition, clear objectives should involve clear measurements. For sales promotion purposes, you must include tracking links and promotional codes in your content. In the promotional ambassador program, the beauty brand Pura Vida Bracelets tracked its performance by giving personalized discount codes to ambassadors. By sending free products, early access to new products, and other supportive marketing materials to its ambassadors, sales increased by 300% year-on-year and customer acquisition costs decreased by 7 times!
On the other hand, if it's a program to increase awareness, it's a good idea to look at visible statistics such as the estimated number of campaigns reached, the number of posts, increased participation, and 30% over the next three months. However, the activities of the ambassador are not limited to social media, the brand can set other metrics to measure performance.
You need to list a set of criteria that will help your brand define future ambassadors. The important factors that we should always look at when choosing ambassadors are the brand and Ambassador Affinity.
Be careful not to partner with influencers that don’t fit your brand image, driven by influencer's popularity (higher followers, higher participation, etc.)!
Sephora’s brand ambassador’s program #SephoraSquad can be a great example for choosing the right ambassador for the program. Through the #SephoraSquad influencer program, Sephora aimed to select a variety of influencer groups that consumers could identify with.
That's why Sephora chose an influencer, who represents a variety of races, ages, genders, nationalities, and sexual orientations and is well-versed in storytelling.
The ambassador must understand the brand message and provide clear and detailed instructions to meet your expectations. Instructions are particularly important when the Nano influencers or Brand Ambassador is new. In this case, the brand can be more involved in the content creation process and provide a support channel to support them.
However, brands should also provide ambassadors with space to playfully enjoy content because they know what audiences like most. One of our favorite examples is the partnership between @kerstinong and @underarmoursg. Kirsten Ong is a student-athlete and PR ambassador for Under Armour Singapore. In addition to sharing the image of wearing Under Armour sneakers, she promoted the brand by challenging her followers with single-leg hops across seven shoeboxes! The video is interesting to watch and quickly gained popularity as it became one of the most viewed videos on her Instagram feed!
Investing in continuous education and fostering relationships with ambassadors is very important for ambassadors to understand brands and improve performance. Even if it's a paid partnership, the real benefits of ambassadors (discounts, free products, or services…) must be provided. The more ambassadors understand and love your products, the more positive and sincere content they will share with their audience.
As with all social media campaigns, brands must measure the performance and scope of promotional ambassadors. Affable's influencer campaign management features allow you to collect information such as total participation, total reach, number of influencer posts (including stories), and contract history, allowing you to measure CPE, CPM, and other KPIs attached to promotional ambassadors. All content and metrics can be downloaded and exported into a PowerPoint presentation showing campaign overview and individual performance.
Choosing a brand ambassador wisely, creating it freely, setting clear guidelines, and tracking performance are four basic steps in the Brand Ambassador Program. If you're new to the Ambassador program, we recommend you to start small (learn through practice) and expand the program over time!
From finding the right influencer, reaching out to them, managing relationships, and measuring performance, many brands are using influencer marketing platforms like Affable to help them run effective ambassador programs! Contact us and request a free demo today!
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